Industrial customers | Hydro-Québec no longer wants to be forced to say yes

Because it is overwhelmed with projects and electricity is becoming scarcer, Hydro-Québec no longer wants to be forced to accept connection requests for less than 50 megawatts.

The Crown corporation asked the Government of Quebec to give itself the necessary tools to choose the best commercial and industrial projects of 50 megawatts or less, as is already the case for connection requests above this threshold of 50 megawatts. .

A committee made up of government and Hydro-Québec representatives was formed last January to examine industrial projects of 50 megawatts or more, and choose those that are most promising for the Québec economy. It is time to do the same with projects of 50 megawatts or less, according to Hydro-Québec.

“Quebec’s energy situation is changing. We are currently moving from an era of surpluses to a period when the increase in demand will make new electricity supplies necessary,” explains spokesperson Maxence Huard-Lefebvre. These new supplies would cost Hydro-Québec much more than the electricity rate that will be paid by these customers, which would increase the rates for all customers. »

Demand for inexpensive renewable electricity from the Hydro-Québec network is rising sharply and requests for connection to the network are piling up. There are currently over 20,000 megawatts of industrial projects of 50 megawatts and above awaiting approval.

3000 megawatts

Industrial projects of less than 50 megawatts, which must normally be accepted unconditionally by Hydro-Québec, total 3,000 megawatts. A quarter of them are data centers that want to obtain electricity at the industrial rate (L rate).

Some of these supply requests that exceeded the 50 megawatt threshold have been revised downwards to 49 megawatts to be resubmitted to Hydro-Québec, which currently has no choice but to connect them to its network. The Crown corporation has an obligation to serve any supply request of less than 50 megawatts.

Even if these projects are smaller than those that must receive government approval, there are so many that accepting them all without making a selection is problematic, according to the state-owned company.

At 5 megawatts, a data center consumes as much electricity as 1,800 homes, and a 50 megawatt block is enough to power 18,000 homes. In total, the 3000 megawatts of connection demand of less than 50 megawatts is equivalent to the production of the La Grande-4 power station, the second largest in the Quebec hydroelectric network. Hydro-Quebec believes that Quebec should have full control over the supply of electricity to industrial projects, regardless of their size. She asks the government to intervene and choose the way to make this selection.

“The “how” is a prerogative of the government and the latter could very well exercise this power”, specifies its spokesperson.

“Hydro-Québec’s request is consistent with the government’s objectives,” said Mathieu Saint-Amand, spokesperson for the Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon. It is essential to carefully select the most strategic projects for our economy and the most promising for the decarbonization of Quebec. »